The 5 Stages of Leadership Development
Not everyone will be a leader, but anyone can become one.
TLDR: Leaders don't become effective because they build skills; they become effective when they keep growing the human way.
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We often think about leadership development as skill-building, as if it were as simple as building a new muscle. But how do you build the skill to be, let’s say, humble? Well, you don’t, because humility isn’t a skill, it’s a characteristic and a practice. You’re only as humble as your last humble moment. That’s why the way we think about leadership development should be less like learning excel formulas (thinking) and more like learning self-awareness (feeling).
At its core, leadership development runs parallel to developmental psychology – a discipline that explores and models just that, our human development. It seeks to make sense of how we grow across every stage of life from childhood to adulthood and career to family. And, as is the case in the field of psychology, there is no shortage of theories.
You’re probably most familiar with Freud. His theory of Psycho-Sexual Development starts at birth and suggests those early experiences have larger implications on our adult functioning. For example, the earliest stages of life, years 0-1, is what he calls the “oral phase of development,” explores scenarios such as a kid who is improperly feed (or under-feed) might be primed to develop oral fixations later in adulthood like smoking or nail-biting. As the theory goes, oral fixations emerge as a response to those early stressful experiences of not having their needs met. Another theory called Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory looks at each stage of development as an opportunity to learn a critical development task or internal conflict. In this model, infancy is the opportunity to learn trust vs mistrust; “Can I trust that I will be fed or not fed?”
These developmental models think about each stage as a turning point for the next. And while we all know that growth isn’t linear, these models fall along a chronological continuum. So the thinking goes, if you skip a “task” then you’ll be stuck at that stage or overcompensate in other areas until you master the lesson of that particular task. If you’ve ever heard of the term “arrested development,” this is where it comes from.
The good news is that, once you master the task, you have mastered it for life. That is, of course, unless you regress. That’s why we like to think about leadership development in a similar way. Once you master a “leadership task,” it will be with you for life.
The 5 Stages of Leadership Development
At Congruent Leadership, we leverage developmental psychology to think about leadership growth. You don’t just become a leader because you have some followers or earned a promotion. You become a leader when you master the developmental tasks of leadership taking care of those around you on the journey to wherever it is that you’re going.
Like Erikson’s model, leadership development faces similar internal “conflicts” which, when resolved, results in a newly developed characteristic or “skill outcome.”
We believe that there are key conflicts along your leadership journey that strengthen your ability to lead congruently.
There are 5 key areas of mastery (and maturity) that translate to effective leadership and positive impact: Authenticity, Self-Awareness, Empathy, Courage, Responsibility.
But these aren’t badges that you can collect. They are developmental tasks that can only be mastered though real, hard, uncomfortable growth.
Growth can be addictive.
You have so much potential — I truly believe you are limitless beyond comprehension. But you’re also at-risk of topping out depending on who and what surrounds you, and how much you’re willing to tolerate discomfort.
I often work with a type of client who will inevitably say to me at some point over the course of our engagement, “I don’t want to be someone I’m not.” Of course, but nobody is asking you to change who you are. Instead, we are asking you to control how you impact others and grow into the best, most congruent version of yourself.
Who you are is core to your identity, but what you do is your behavior. The challenge is knowing the difference between those two. That’s why it’s so important to find your expanders. Just like playing a more advanced tennis player to help you raise your game, it’s critical identify who and what can help you grow beyond your current frame of reference, the foundational beliefs you hold, and the assumptions you make about the world around you.
What and who you listen to is what you become. You are the average of the 5. Their social norms become your social norms. It can help you grow, it can catapult you into a world you only dreamed of, or it can keep you right where you are.
So ask yourself, what (or who) can help you move from one developmental task to the next?
We’re obsessed with helping you grow and we love feedback. Leave a comment below, DM us or reach out anytime at hello@congruentleadership.com or schedule a complimentary intro call to explore our executive coaching offerings.
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